“I suppose because Maud’s back is turned,” said Verity, locking her hands behind her head, and then glancing at Miss Chancellor and withdrawing them.
“What a lot Miss Tuke and Miss Petticott have to say to each other!” said Esther. “Miss Tuke does not generally open her mouth.”
“They look rather alike,” said Verity. “No, I do not mean alike; rather as if they were somehow in the same sort of world.”
“Well, I daresay they are,” said Clemence. “Miss Petticott is not a qualified person like your mistresses. We have Sefton’s tutor to teach us their sort of subjects.”
“Where is your brother, Clemence?” said Gwendolen.
“He will be coming in presently, when his friends are here.”
“Is he having friends too, today?”
“Yes, from his school. They are coming by a later train. He left the school at the end of the term, as I did.”
“Did he leave for any particular reason?” said Esther.
“No, just as I did,” said Clemence, hurrying her words. “He was supposed not to look so well, or to have been overworked or something.”
“If there had been ten of you, would you all have left?” said Verity. “I suppose some of you would have reached the leaving age.”
“Oh, the powers that be, settled it between them. I do not know much about it. My parents seem to like home education best.”
“They may be afraid of your becoming unfitted for home life,” said Esther. “That would have happened soon enough. If you were not relations of Miss Firebrace, you would have had to give a term’s notice. I mean, you would have had to pay the fees for the term.”
“We did have to. I heard it being talked about. My father and mother were not very pleased about it.”
“I should think not,” said Gwendolen. “Mine would not have been pleased at all. I should have been made to feel quite guilty.”
“Did you not have to feel guilty, Clemence?” said Esther.
“It was nothing to do with me. School customs are not my fault.”
“Why did you not come back for the one term?” said Verity.
“Oh, I don’t know. It was not even suggested.”
“So your parents wasted a term’s fees to indulge their inclinations,” said Gwendolen, while three pairs of eyes passed over Clemence’s clothes. “I wish mine had as much to spare, and would spend it so easily.”
“People spend on such different things,” said Esther.
“Which life do you really prefer, Clemence?” said Verity.
“It is a good thing that Maud cannot hear, so that we can show our true natures,” said Gwendolen. “She would be so ashamed of us, and so would Miss Chancellor. I should be ashamed of myself, if I were capable of such a feeling.”
“Really, Gwendolen, I think you do yourself an injustice,” said Verity, in idle imitation of Miss Chancellor.
“I have seen no sign in you of such insensitiveness,” said Esther, in the same manner.
“Well, which life do you prefer, Clemence?” said Verity.
“Oh, home on the whole, I suppose. But there were things I liked about school; the changes in teaching and the different people as companions. Home life does incline to be rather the same.”
“You have no affection for us, as we have for you,” said Gwendolen. “I shall give way when we get home, because we never won your heart.”
“You continually promise us a sight of you in tears, Gwendolen, and the promise is never realised,” said Clemence, taking up the mimicry. “Not that we wish it to be.”
“Yes, imitation of everyone is the thing at school now,” said Verity. “You left just in time to escape it.”
“I shall hate home life when I have nothing else,” said Esther.
“Esther, are you thinking what you are saying?” said Verity, changing her voice the next moment to her own. “How old is your brother, Clemence?”
“He is eleven, three years younger than I am.”
“And will his friends be—are his friends of his own age?”
“I suppose so. About that age. I had not thought about it,” said Clemence, her face changing as she thought about it now. There was a pause.
“Why did you ask us all on the same day?” said Esther.
“Oh, I do not know. It was planned in that way. I did not have much to do with it. It was thought we might like to see our friends, and then it was just arranged. Perhaps we said we should like to. I don’t remember.”
“I wish my chance words were attended to like that,” said Esther. “You must have to be careful what you say.”
“But I could not suggest that the age of Sefton’s friends should be altered,” said Clemence, in a rising tone. “It would have been no good to drop a hint like that.”
“I don’t mind what age they are,” said Esther. “What difference does it make to us?”
“None, unless you talk to them. And that you need not do. Indeed, I don’t suppose you will have the chance. They will keep together.”
“They will awaken my maternal instincts,” said Gwendolen.
“We can let them do that,” said Verity. “And that will solve any problems.”
“I did not know it presented any problems, just to have some boys about,” said Clemence. “I am too used to Sefton to worry about his age. I don’t suppose he troubles about mine. We have all been that age ourselves.”
“Clemence is more of a child since she settled down at home,” said Verity, resting her eyes on her hostess. “She is more as she was when she first came to school.”
“Well, I daresay that is natural,” said Clemence. “We are all children up to a point in our own homes. I expect it is the same with all of you. And we shall have plenty of time to be grown-up.”
“If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving towards me,” said Gwendolen.
“I don’t know that my family is so fond of my winning infancy,” said Verity, lifting her shoulders. “They don’t mind my being myself. If we outnumber the boys, our maternal impulses may overwhelm them. Perhaps we had better suppress them.”
The girls appeared to have no difficulty in doing this when Sefton entered with his friends. They regarded the latter without expression, and gave no sign of distinguishing one from another. Maria saw the position and did not introduce them. Maud moved away from Sir Roderick, as if she had taken enough of his attention, and he gave the boys the welcome he would have given to any guests; and having seen Miss James attracted by some hidden force to Miss Tuke and Miss Petticott, sat down among them and talked with serious interest, asking for accounts of their school life and giving recollections of his own. He obtained light on Sefton without betraying his purpose or without knowing that he did so; and if Bacon gave him what help he could, was no less the gainer, that he was unaware of it. Any jests he made were well received, partly because the boys were amused by them, and partly because they involved no rallying of themselves. When luncheon was announced, he guided them to places that kept them together, and put Sefton at the head of the board, on the ground that he was the host.
“Then Clemence is the hostess and should sit at the other end,” said Maria, rising and preparing to undo the arrangements, without thought of an alternative scheme.
“No, no, my pretty, she is well enough. Leave her among her friends.”
The girls exchanged glances at this description of Maria, and then looked again at the latter, as though to reconsider their impression.
“You should not call me that before strangers, Roderick. They cannot fit the words to a weatherbeaten woman like me.”
“I call you what you are to me, my dear.”
The luncheon was based on youthful ideas of luxury. Sir Roderick saw that the boys could eat without any sense of eyes upon them; Miss Petticott that the girls did much the same; Maria saw to nothing with an unconscious inattentiveness that did its part. Oliver entered the room as everything was under way.
“I coul
d not resist being late, Maria. I wanted to enter at a moment when every eye would be upon me.”
“You should not be so conscious of yourself.”
“I did not think I was. I wanted other people to be conscious of me. I thought that was being conscious of them.”
The girls looked at Oliver and then at Clemence.
“It is my grown-up brother. He will behave in his own way.”
“How are you, Aunt Lesbia?” said Oliver, going to greet his aunt.
Lesbia raised her face for his salute, keeping her eyes from the girls, whose expression perhaps did not invite scrutiny.
“How do you do, Miss James?” said Oliver, moving round the table. “I hope you find you cannot fill my place.”
“That is just how I should put it, Mr. Shelley. The place is formally filled, but it seems to lack the one thing needful.”
“How does your brother know Miss James, Clemence?” said Verity. “I thought she was the matron at your younger brother’s school.”
“So she is. He taught music there last term by way of an experiment. He soon gave it up, of course.”
“Was it a sort of joke?” said Gwendolen.
“Yes, and the humour of it soon palled.”
“My sister is betraying my confidence,” said Oliver, playing into Clemence’s hands. “Have you given up your music, Holland?”
“No, sir. I learn with the new master.”
“Then he does what I could not do.”
“I mean I have lessons with him.”
“You should say what you mean. How the schoolmaster’s touch returns! Is the school different without my brother and me?”
“No, it is the same,” said Bacon. “Of course we wish Sefton was there.”
“And not that I was?”
“Well, that does not make so much difference. Except to the boys who learn music—who have music lessons,” said Bacon, correcting himself without change of tone.
“Do you still eat potted meat, Sturgeon?”
“No, I never take it now.”
“When it was the thing that raised your life to the heights?”
“He did not like the heights,” said Bacon. “They are not always congenial to people.”
“And you yourself still go from strength to strength?”
“Yes, he does,” said Holland.
“He is still a leader of men?”
“Yes,” said Bacon, grinning.
“Did the good fairies preside at his birth?” said Sir Roderick, looking at Bacon.
“Yes, they gave him a great brain,” said Holland, “and that large head to keep it in, and give it room to grow.”
“And how did the rest of you come?” said Maria, using the past tense to bring Sefton into the lists.
“Shelley came next, and the rest of us nowhere.”
“And no one near to Bacon?”
“Well, Shelley came up to him in brains, but not in other things.”
“My little son!” said Maria.
“Shelley looks as if he did not like the description,” said Holland.
“Though it cannot be called incorrect,” said Bacon.
“You are in an advantageous position, sir,” said Sir Roderick to Mr. Firebrace, who sat opposite the girls.
“That is so, my boy; and as I am too old to be of account, I avail myself of it.”
“Who is the old gentleman, Clemence?” said Verity.
“Oh, some sort of relation, who lives in the house.”
“Isn’t he your grandfather?” said Esther. “Your brother called him that.”
“He is Oliver’s grandfather, not mine.”
“How can he be? You must have the same.”
“Oh, I can’t keep on expounding it all. If you were interested, you would not need so much explanation.”
“My husband married twice,” said Maria, in a clear, cordial tone, smiling at her daughter’s guests. “I am his second wife. Mr. Firebrace is the father of the first, and so Oliver’s grandfather and not my children’s.”
“Oh, I see,” said Verity. “It is like a lesson.”
“Not at all, Verity,” said Miss Chancellor. “I hope your lessons are not often as simple as that. I cannot understand your difficulty. You are not usually so easily perplexed.”
“These family trees are complicated,” said Sir Roderick, with a note of sympathy. “They are only clear on paper.”
“Then I am right that they are like a lesson, Sir Roderick.”
“Then remember that lessons should be mastered as quickly and thoroughly as possible, Verity.”
“You should not be so harsh, Miss Chancellor, when we are having a day’s pleasure,” said Gwendolen.
“You need not give your intelligence a rest, Gwendolen. That is a misuse of a holiday too often made.”
“I wish Miss Chancellor would take a holiday,” said Esther, in a murmur audible to Sir Roderick, who controlled a smile, and to Lesbia, who kept her eyes down and did not do so.
“I think it is dignified of me to have my particular grandfather,” said Oliver. “It is not everyone who can keep his own forbear in the house. Do you not agree with me, Miss Gwendolen?”
Gwendolen was taken aback and made a conscious response.
“I don’t think it was dignified to be music master in a school, Mr. Shelley.”
“And why not, Gwendolen?” said Miss Chancellor.
“Well, he must have watched five-finger exercises and heard all kinds of strumming. It was an extraordinary choice.”
“I did not dislike the idea,” said Oliver. “It reminded me of a picture in the Academy. The Music Master. Myself resting my head on my hand and my eyes on the keyboard. And a boy pupil seemed to be a change from a girl, and to have a certain pathos.”
“And had he any?” said Sir Roderick.
“Well, not of the kind I thought.”
“You might as well say my position was undignified, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor.
Sir Roderick raised his eyes.
“She was talking of a man teacher and a boys’ school,” said Oliver. “The opposite situation. She thought it suggested poverty and the common task.”
“Well, no one could apply the term, ‘undignified’, to such things as those.”
“Isn’t it dreadful that people can?” said Oliver.
There was some laughter, in which Miss Chancellor joined a moment later.
“I should be proud if I could teach anything,” said Maria.
“Yes, that is my view, Lady Shelley.”
“Now I am going to desert the boys for the girls,” said Sir Roderick, rising and gathering up the implements at his place.
Aldom came to his aid; other changes of position were involved; and as the stir subsided Maud’s voice was heard.
“In using the word, ‘dignified’, we should be clear if we are using it in its true sense. Dignity is not synonymous with prosperity.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said Sir Roderick.
“Does it tend to rise out of it?” said Oliver. “Of course I hope it does not.”
“Are you going to take up any work when you leave school?” said Maria to Maud, unconscious of the sequence of her thought.
“Well, Lady Shelley, that would be my choice in a way. But there will be other claims upon me.”
“Home claims save women from a great deal,” said Sir Roderick.
“And deprive them of as much in some cases,” said Miss Chancellor. “I am afraid in a good many.”
“Well, that may sometimes be so. But what do they deprive them of, now? Incessant work and a daily grind that ages them before their time. What is there to be said for it?”
Miss Chancellor’s amusement was so easy that it suggested no prospect of a serious reply.
“Roderick, if you had been a little less foolish, you might have been rewarded differently,” said Maria.
“By that flash of the eyes that carries terror with it,” said Gwendolen. “Miss Chancellor
would not do for a picture in the Academy.”
“That would have been a reward indeed,” said Sir Roderick, just bowing towards Miss Chancellor.
“Well, really, Sir Roderick, you are the last person to make a target of people’s eyes,” said Miss Chancellor, looking through her glasses at her host. “You have, without exception, the bluest pair it has been my lot to meet.”
“I have never seen such blue ones either,” said Esther to her companions. “And the butler’s are just the same. They come suddenly open in just the same way.”
“It may be a mark of the local stock,” said Maud. “The same characteristics do appear in the same place. In some counties the tendency is marked.”
“My husband is not used to compliments on his appearance,” said Maria, as Sir Roderick’s eyes fell.
“We ought to talk about the girls’ eyes, though we might find ourselves confronted by a row of lashes.”
“Well, if you give warning like that, Sir Roderick,” said Miss Chancellor, looking full at him, as one who had not received it, “I do not know what you would expect.”
“What colour are your eyes, Miss James?” said Sir Roderick, as the result of looking round the table to see that everyone had full attention.
“Hazel, Sir Roderick, what ever that may be. Or that is what I have been brought up to believe. I am never quite sure what the colour is, or whether it is the colour of my eyes or not. And I have never concerned myself much about it.”
“Hazel,” said Sir Roderick, after leaning forward with an air of concerning himself more.
“No one has dared to tell me that my eyes are green,” said Maria, overestimating the general courage, as no one knew they were.
“Green is a most unusual colour, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Chancellor. “Not that I think it is a fair description.”
“What colour are your eyes, Miss Tuke?” said Sir Roderick, seeing, or rather feeling, an alertness in Miss Tuke’s bearing.
“Blue-grey or grey-blue, Sir Roderick. It does not much matter which, and anyhow it cannot be determined.”
Miss Tuke was wrong.
“Grey-blue,” said Sir Roderick, after leaning forward again.
“Now the boys’ eyes, Father,” said Oliver.
Two Worlds and Their Ways Page 26